You'll Never Walk Alone Again
by sleepyaugustus
Summary: In which Annabeth learns to purge what she's been fed her whole life. OR three times she stepped back, and once she didn't. :: Birthday fic for Mari!


**YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE AGAIN**

* * *

i.

Annabeth has spent her life stepping back.

Her earliest memory of this particular situation is at seven years old. The details aren't exactly sharp and there's always a few bits that don't completely clear up, but she remembers being in the kitchen of her first home. It's her dad's day off and Annabeth is excited that her stepmother and twin brothers are away at a soccer game in the next town over. She has her father to herself, which doesn't happen often when you take into consideration his demanding job and ever present, shiny-new family. Well, she supposes they aren't really _that_ new. But newer than her, and her dad's interest has been quite lackluster with the addition of the two stepsons and pretty Asian woman named Deb.

The boys aren't much younger than her, and the resentful side of Annabeth thinks they really don't necessitate _all_ the attention they're given. Bobby and Matthew are five years old and she's pretty sure they don't have to be babied as constantly as they are; when _she_ was five, no one ever treated her like royalty.

For now, she doesn't give these thoughts time. Because her dad sits at the kitchen counter, "Las Vegas UFO Convention" mug in hand, flipping through a stack of papers taller than Deb. He mutters quietly under his breath, "Donnie should become acquainted with spell-check..."

Even at seven years old, Annabeth knows successfully interrupting her father while he's working is something of an art form, because even the latest earthquake hadn't removed him from his favorite stool at the kitchen counter. It's close enough to the coffee pot for him to reach out and fill his mug with ease, yet far enough from the stove that he doesn't worry his papers will catch fire (though from his muttered comments, you'd think it'd save him some pain to let at least a few of them go up in flames.)

Squaring her small shoulders, Annabeth steps up to the stool directly beside her father's, National Geographic tucked under her arm. She remembers before he met Deb, when he would sit in his bed by the portrait of her real mother and watch documentaries in his room. Annabeth would climb up into the bed with him, sinking in the overstuffed pillows while he'd drag her to his side and squeeze her into a hug until she squealed for mercy.

Carefully, she heaved herself onto the high stool. Her father didn't look up from the typed essay in front of him, red pen swishing back and forth across the paper. His brows furrowed and he continued to talk to the ghost of his student. "Do you people retain nothing..?"

Her finger bisects the magazine down the middle and she spreads the colorful pages over Deb's spotless countertop. She quietly sneaks a peek at her father from under her lashes, watching as he sighs frustratedly, pushing his glasses up and pinching the bridge of his nose. Clearing her throat, she pokes him in the shoulder after a moment of hesitation.

He doesn't react, and Annabeth swallows her nerves again. "Dad?" she says quietly. He scribbles angry red marks across the paper: D minus. He never liked to give failing grades, no matter how dry and rushed a paper may read. Losing her sense of direction, she glances toward the magazine for inspiration. Her reading level is higher than most kids in her grade, so it's not a stretch for her to skim through the article quickly for an idea. Once she starts speaking, she can't seem to find the brakes to stop. "Dad, look at the research they've done under the sea this summer. They've caught a rare fish, it's called a Sea Devil-a lot scarier looking than an Angel Fish, understandably. Funny, right-"

"Yes, that's very interesting, Annabeth." His eyes haven't moved from the paper in his hands. Annabeth begins to feel impatient-they're wasting all of their alone time grading papers and flipping through the pages of a magazine she's read four times already. She won't let the opportunity go to waste, even if she has to use the time to prove to her father how worthy she is of his affection. Sure, Bobby and Matthew are younger and cuter, but Annabeth's a whole lot smarter than those two monkey butts, and she thinks that's what her father would appreciate above all. She just has to prove it.

"But Dad. They've never had footage of this particular fish before. It's actually a bit of a breakthrough. They had to use this weird equipment to get so deep-"

He sighs again, this time through his nose. "Very nice." His jaw is tight.

"But _Dad_. They're discovering things they could have never learned before! Apparently, they had no idea this fish used its dorsal fin to swim-"

"For the love of _Christ_ , Annabeth," her father bursts suddenly, face red and glasses slipping down the slant of his nose. Startled, she jumps back, almost falling off the back of the stool before her hands catch the edge of the counter. "Please just _shut up_."

Nodding almost as instantly as the words leave his mouth, she quickly hops off the chair and backs out of the room with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth to block sight of the trembling. Her eyes sting as she abandons the National Geographic magazine on the counter and runs to her room.

She'll spend the rest of their alone time keeping quiet and undetectable. She won't distract him again.

* * *

ii.

At thirteen, Annabeth is just beginning to learn how to voice her opinions. Or the fact that she _can_ , at least. It's this newfound power humming under the surface of her skin; it's the potential to prove she knows something, that the views and thoughts that are newly forming in her are valid regardless of her age and so-thought "lack of wisdom." It's her right to have a mind that's worth accounting for.

She sits in her general social studies class, a required credit for the seventh grade, and her old supremacist of a teacher stands before the room with a grace that only comes from smugness. From the knowledge that he's the molder of all the young, impressionable minds sitting before him and he intends to stretch this power he holds as far as possible. Mr. Flanders intends to state his views without expecting any kind of feedback.

A current event found on a local news site sparks a sort of inspiration in Annabeth's teacher, and she feels a kind of fire start inside of her as soon as she walks into the room and sees what's displayed on the board. It's an article, cringe-worthy and hardly credible, by the looks of it. Her father's a professor, she's long since learned to tell the difference between factual evidence and malarkey.

There's not much back and forth between the teacher and students once the discussion starts, Annabeth is appalled to observe. Everyone lets Flanders drawl on about the gender pay gap and how the data isn't exactly accurate when it is told that women deserve equal wage, because men, in fact, do work harder than women in most cases. Annabeth catches only a few grimaces throughout the room, only few who understand what's being fed to them: _bullshit_. She locks eyes with green ones across the room, who looks absolutely baffled the same way she feels.

Before she has time to understand the ramifications of sharing her opinions, the threat of not being agreed with, her hand shoots up into the air with a mind of its own.

Mr. Flanders' fluffy eyebrow raises in surprise. "Yes, Ms. Chase?"

"I have to say I disagree." Annabeth squares her shoulders, an act not of defiance, but confidence.

Only after his shock recedes does Mr. Flanders have the audacity to laugh. At her. "And what do you disagree with, young lady?" His smirk says he's already not considering what she has to say. He's preparing the response that will no doubt back up his opinions regardless.

"It's impossible to say men work harder. You couldn't know, and you're hardly the best judge of that. I think you're biased. I think the whole _article_ is biased." She looks to the projector screen at the front of the room. " _When you hire a woman, you lose that certain_ something _a male has. A focus. A one-track mind. Women have so many other innate concerns to worry about._ " She feels bile rise in her throat as she reads these words, thinks of her unknowing classmates soaking up the poison. Not one of them chime in to back her up, but she thinks she might have seen someone nod from the corner of the room. It's her only beacon.

Mr. Flanders now looks slightly less amused and more affronted. "Know your place, Annabeth," he snarls.

Maybe he intends to return to his lecture after he says this, but Annabeth just can't imagine how someone could think this way. _In this century_. His latest statement only shoots gasoline into her veins, stoking the fire that started in her belly the moment she walked into the room. "Basically what you're saying is that if you were to get paid more than Mrs. Li across the hall, it would be justified? Because you work harder?"

His mustache lifts as he puffs and crosses his arms. If his one-way teaching didn't provide enough horror, the atrocity of his elbow pads may have done her in. "I work plenty hard. I can't imagine many teachers share the same passion I do."

"Mrs. Li won 'Teacher of the Year.' And you'll say she deserves only seventy-five cents for every dollar you make?" Annabeth begins to feel doubt once she realizes how quiet the room has gone. Mr. Flanders looks flustered and angry, a big red cherry of a nose scrunched onto his face in frustration.

He takes a calming breath before beginning to speak, but the words still slither out of his grinding teeth viciously. " _Detention_. I'll meet you here for lunch, Ms. Chase."

It's then that someone finally, _mercily_ speaks. "That's not fair, Mr. Flanders!" The voice comes from the boy with the green eyes. He's just stood up from his seat in the corner of the room, sympathetic indignation marring his kind features. "She didn't do anything wrong!"

Her body tightens with shock and she feels her jaw drop slightly. This isn't how she imagined this discussion would go.

"Enough, Jackson! You can join her for lunch detention!" Flanders has steam shooting from his ears now, and he's ready to fight for his own honor, his own integrity.

The boy sits down harshly, folding his arms and curling his lip. Black hair flops down onto his forehead and he shoves it away. "Gladly," he mutters.

Annabeth never meant to get in trouble. Never meant for anyone _else_ to get in trouble. Guilt churns her stomach. "Mr. Flanders-"

" _Shut up, Annabeth_!" he seethes loudly, startling her. Her heart does a little jump as she's brought back to a time so long ago, where she'd heard the same words from her father. "I've never dealt with such disrespect. From _students_. I'm the teacher here, so if anyone else has something to say, kindly take it up with your _own_ class. I won't entertain any more nonsense from the peanut gallery."

In the silence of a class whose leash has just been tightened, the fight somewhere inside her dies. The word _hopeless_ resonates in her mind, and this, it feels like a failure. She feels seven years old in her kitchen, sitting on a stool with a yellow-bordered magazine spread before her. Disconnected, she separates herself from the situation. She stands down from her argument; she steps back.

* * *

iii.

When she's sixteen years old, Will Solace asks to be her boyfriend.

Annabeth says yes, she's nervous and completely surprised, but Will is cute and she's never had a boyfriend before. Of all the choices in their sophomore class, he's hardly the worst contender. Soft blond hair, warm tanned skin and a working brain inside his thick teenaged-boy skull. He'd never expressed interest in her beforehand - _or any other girl_ , she thinks on later - but that doesn't seem to matter when they're sitting together at lunch, munching on the school's chicken nuggets and he asks her to go roller skating.

Will is a sweet guy. He holds her hand in the hallways, carries her books and always wishes her a sincere goodbye when they part. And when they kiss, he never takes it too far, never asks for more. He doesn't move past light pecks, even when Annabeth thinks she might be ready to. Their peers think they're a cute couple and Will even asks her to meet his parents after a few months. Will's father is a bit of a young soul, full of life and laughter, but his mother just seems confused to meet Annabeth. Like she hadn't been expecting someone like her to walk through the door.

It's seven and a half months into their relationship when it all becomes clear to her in the most blunt of ways. Annabeth is seventeen now, and she feels like an adult. Feels like she understands the big complicated world around her. While she's learned to face the fact that her father doesn't appreciate her as much as he used to and she's not always going to be taken seriously when she deserves it, she thinks maybe it's all a little bit inevitable. That this is just the way the world spins and there's nothing she can do about it.

She doesn't know who ended up being at fault this time around. Annabeth could have sworn her and Will had made plans to study at his place after school. His parents would still be at work and she thought they'd finally be able to move forward in their relationship, with no factors present to hold them back. But somewhere along the way, there'd been a miscalculation. Something she hadn't accounted for.

Annabeth walks in on her boyfriend in bed with another boy.

There isn't a lot of time to take in details between the initial interruption and her haste to disappear, but Annabeth recognizes the teenager who's rolling under the sheets with her boyfriend of seven and a half months, and it's Nico di Angelo. They'd partnered up in History class last semester. He was shy, but friendly enough.

And now he's screwing Will.

"Annabeth!"

She isn't sure who says it. In the misty confusion, she can't tell the difference between the two low, male voices. Her heart contracts painfully in her chest and it feels like something is crumbling in there. Something vital. But she doesn't yell. She doesn't scream at her boyfriend for lying to her. For cheating on her. For faking it the whole time. She steps out of the room, because _she_ is the one who's been blind.

"Annabeth, wait!"

She steps out of the house, keys digging into her skin as her fists curl.

"I didn't know you were coming!" He's struggling to clothe himself as he chases her out of the house. "I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry."

She steps into her car. Tears cloak her vision and she drives away.

* * *

+i.

Annabeth's twenty-four years old when she knows she deserved better. She's twenty-four years old when she decides to forgive.

Life has been a long and winding path for Annabeth, and it takes an eleven year long tango with some boy from middle school and a Master's degree before she starts to unlearn what had become law in her life.

She reconnects with Percy Jackson in college. They'd known each other since what seems like forever now, but aside from a small debate in a dull social studies class so many years ago, they had never really sought out friendship. It was noon-time in the middle of September and Annabeth was enjoying lunch and her laptop, sitting in the quad outside of the school of sciences. When she was halfway through an interesting article about social constructs of ancient cultures, she felt someone plop onto the blanket next to her.

The green eyes, she'd recognize whether she wanted to or not, stare into her own. "Hey, I know you," he chirps happily, setting his backpack down next to him and getting comfortable. "I didn't know you were going here, Annabeth."

A smile tilts the corners of her mouth unknowingly, _unfairly_ , because his lopsided grin is a little bit endearing. "Didn't expect anyone else to flee across the country for college?" For a New Yorker, California was a big, scary place. In so many ways different, but occasionally she found small similarities that gave her comfort when she felt alone and out of her mind at night.

"I'm not fleeing," he says matter-of-factly. "I'm _exploring_. It doesn't have to feel like running away if you're doing it for yourself."

It was after that conversation she realized he was going to change things.

Percy Jackson shook her world like soda pop in your little brother's hands. What started as friendship, a mutual share of opinion and knowledge and advice, eventually blossomed into something Annabeth never could have saw coming. Something real and right for the first time in her life.

He showed her what it meant to feel valued. Treated her the way she should have been from the start. And some part of her feels sad for the time she didn't know him, when she was naive and misled.

After six years of working her ass off in college, she earns her Master's. She finally knows the true extent of the worth she was born with, what's always been there. She knows that throughout her life, there were times when she was misguided, led to believe something different. But as a person who's learned to love herself, and learned to let someone equal love her as well, she knows what she deserves. And it's a lot more than what she'd been given in her twenty-four years.

But she understands that this isn't her father's fault. Not even Will or Mr. Flanders. For a revelation like this, she needed to watch it happen around her. It had to happen for herself. So she decides to forgive.

Percy helps her track down Will Solace first. Annabeth finds through Facebook that he is now engaged to "the other man": Nico di Angelo. She feels no ill-will toward the couple, and although it would have spared her days of heartbreak had Will come to her first with truth of his feelings, she understands the pressure he was under. And in comparison to what he gave her in their time of friendship and more, she can forgive his mistakes made in the confusion of his struggle. She sends a sincere, congratulatory letter in the mail. He sends a wedding invitation.

Mr. Flanders is a little harder to track down, having transferred school districts after many complaints from the parents of his students. They find he is working in a podunk town somewhere south, where his ideas might be met with an agreeing audience. A familiar fire kindles in her belly that had been suffocated for far too long-she calls him on the phone.

The conversation doesn't last long. Annabeth merely reintroduces herself and proceeds to inform him that Mrs. Li is the principal of her old middle school. Mr. Flanders hangs up.

Her father is the hardest to forgive. Throughout her life, she strived to please him. To feel like she was enough. After the tragedy of losing herself to outside forces, she knows she'd never let that happen to her own kids. She'd show them all the love and pride in the world, and it would never dull over time. It would never lessen to make room for someone else.

When she graduates grad school, Percy is there to swing her off her feet and congratulate her with sweet kisses. "You amaze me everyday," he tells her sincerely and Annabeth's heart pumps wildly in her chest. No, she doesn't think Percy's the sole person to credit for what she's been able to achieve. But he's got a big part in it and she's grateful he's been a part of her life. She couldn't think of one other person she'd rather have taken this journey with.

In the midst of excitement and new beginnings, Annabeth is shocked to see her father has turned up to the celebration.

He never showed much interest in her success and part of her feels offended that he'd decided to show up now. After she's done, without a word of encouragement throughout her whole education, from kindergarten to grad school. If he hadn't bothered to show up to her performance in the spelling bee of the fifth grade, he doesn't deserve to show up now.

But she won't turn him away. She can't find it in herself to reject what she craved since childhood: his approval. And after a stiff, but warm hug, she gets just that.

"Annabeth," he says, squeezing her shoulder. His hair is graying at the roots and the hemline of his "fancy suit" is frayed. He's had it for years, only to wear to weddings and funerals. "I'm proud of you."

It doesn't feel nearly as good as she imagined. And that's when she knows it's the end of her old life. The closure that'll send her off into the world that is finally her own. "I'm proud of me, too."

"I'm also proud of Annabeth," someone says, hitching an arm around her shoulder and pecking her cheek. The smiles takes over her mouth before she has the chance to hide it. Percy's warmth melts into her skin, seeps into her bones.

Her father's smile is polite, but it's clear he doesn't know if he should be happy or sad to see this boy curled around his daughter. Annabeth slips her arm around Percy's waist, returning the gesture and letting her father know that this is her choice, no matter how he feels about it.

They entertain Frederick for a few hours back at their apartment after the celebration settles down, and when he leaves for his hotel later, it's with a smile on his face. Annabeth feels a little bit high, a little bit mighty. And she knows she's allowed to. She's made it this far and she deserves every bit of happiness and success coming her way.

And it's that night, after her father's been gone for an almost an hour and Percy's just finished framing her certificate in the living room that she flops onto the couch lazily. It's that night, that Percy falls onto one knee before her, with a black velvet box open in his fingers. It's this night, where her life finally begins.

"If you say yes, and I get to live the rest of my life like the past six years, I'll know I've won the lottery. And if you say no, I'll still know I've won the lottery for what you've already given me." He laughs then. "I still want you to say yes, though."

She does say yes, but she knows she's won far, far more.

* * *

 **happy birthday to mari! (percyyoulittleshit on tumblr) hope you liked itttt!**


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